If it doesn’t sound right, you’ll also lose the audience. Awareness of the subtleties of language, empathy with the audience, knowledge of the subject matter and a dollop of gut feel are necessary to ensure that translations are both technically correct and idiomatic.
I do not simply translate, I transcreate: rendering German and French texts into elegant native British, American or international English.
“We work with Ed to translate German texts into English not only because the translations are accurate but because he really takes the trouble to understand the subject matter. This has greatly helped us to promote TTS in English-speaking countries.”
Jörg Geulen, Head of Marketing, TTS GmbH